I reckon sixth-formers spend too much time on legal websites and blogs, gazing dreamily at the magic million-pound-plus partner profit figures put out by top commercial law firms.For me, as a law student aged 18, the corporate law pound signs certainly had a pull. While at university, I remember sitting in a presentation by a couple of lawyers from Gouldens (since swallowed up by Jones Day), complete with untold crates of free beer and mountains of pizza. Both lawyers were in their late twenties, smiled a lot, and turned up at the local nightclub at around 1am later that night, still suited. To me, from the outside, it looked as though you could carry on life as a student (albeit better dressed) and pull in six figures before you were 30 – and in any case, I knew that £35,000 as a 22-year-old was well above the normal graduate salary.

Could this be the same conclusion reached by some of the 9,012 students who enrolled on the LPC this year? At the same time as they enrolled, 3,581 students started training contracts. Last year, 1,000 students who completed their LPC did not get a training contract. It looks like the situation this year will be far worse.

Meanwhile, prospective barristers have it even harder: an estimated 600 pupillages and 200 tenancies were available for the 1,749 students who took the Bar Vocational Course last year.

This year, 18,394 students accepted places to study law at university, according to UCAS. Inevitably, some will do what I did, and decide that while a career for law isn’t the career for them, it’s still a good idea to come away from university with a law degree.

Nevertheless, many will be seduced by the free beer and bumper salaries. Big law firms understandably need to compete for the best talent, so they will keep sending young bright-eyed associates to university campuses. Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, this will lead to disappointment for many students.

In recalling the memory of the Gouldens lawyers, something else struck me: I have no recollection of going to graduate job presentations run by anyone other than City solicitors. My outlook on potential legal careers was, as a result, narrow – I doubt I knew much about what in-house lawyers do, for example. This wasn’t helped by the fact that, like many fellow students, I naively turned my nose up at the independent careers advice service in the students’ union building.

Careers advice from an independent adviser is very different from careers advice from City solicitors, but many do not seek it of their own accord. Perhaps law students need to be made better aware of the full range of legal jobs available to them, and in the current climate, the fact that they might not get them.